A Workshop of Our Own

About four years ago was the last time we at coeno were thinking about our vision. At that time, this was still a purely management issue: a topic that Markus and I had thought about and then communicated the results internally to our employees. A lot has happened since then. Not only has our management style changed. We also tackle strategic issues, such as developing a vision, in a new way.

With the emergence of new VOD platforms, the development of the user interface comes to the fore. How does the user find the important information and products? Can the user understand the product offering and figure things out by themself? It should not be forgotten that the preparation of content plays a large role in whether a movie or TV show gets purchased in the end or not.

Again and again we tell our customers how important it is to deal with users (= customers), to ask their opinion and to take their opinion seriously. Well, this doesn’t apply to us, does it? In this context, the central question that matters to us as an agency is: how can we guarantee constant development of our overall competencies and the positive perception of this by the customer. To learn about this, we should also count on the opinion of our customers and collect and evaluate data in a structured way.

Communication in all its facets is a very important part of my daily work as a UX Consultant. Dealing with (sometimes difficult) customers, internal coordination and sharing of critical information — often under extreme time pressure — makes up the lion’s share of my job. Good communication is therefore essential, in order to avoid misunderstandings, cope with difficult conversation situations and resolve conflicts.

A situation that everyone knows: You are asking a colleague to give feedback on the current project status. Easy, but a simple question like “What do you think?” can get out of control and lead to a meeting of many hours in which everybody is talking about personal preferences and likes. In the end, you are more uncertain than before. Last year at the UX London conference, I attended a workshop hosted by Adam Conner that described how it is possible to prevent such problems.

The term “creativity” comes from the Latin word “creare”, which means “create” or “generate”. An intuitive and often used definition is that creative ideas are both new and useful as they provide a suitable solution for a problem. In this interview with Maximiliane Wagner, an experienced UI conceptualizer who has been working on the topic of methods for creativity for some time, we present methods that support the creative development process. Since, at coeno, we are mostly involved in UI development and design,

On November 12, IT architects, concept developers, UX designers, usability specialists and product managers from all over the world met for World Usability Day (WUD), an event started by the international User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA) in 2005. After giving a presentation last year at WUD in Bonn, I became part of the organizing team for the event this year in Munich.

A topic that is often neglected on a project is the user onboarding: How does a potential user know that there is a new product that can make their life easier? What is the easiest registration process for them? How do they come back a second time and how can we ensure that the users are not just using our products, but using them in an advantageous way, and enjoying it too?

Today, User Experience (UX) penetrates all industries. Markus Kugler, Managing Director at coeno, identifies three reasons for large companies to deal with UX now. coeno has just been assigned to do the UI redesign of the sophisticated online campaign tool AdCampaign by the Swiss company Publicitas. The goal: satisfied users who enjoy the application. According to Markus Kugler, this should also be the rule for business applications.

The new version of the DB Navigator App has been available for a few days. The app provides information about travel connections and allows you to purchase tickets online. As a commuter who travels by train between Rosenheim and Munich, I use the app daily to inform me about delays. That’s why I, of course, check out the updates to the app very carefully.